James Delingpole reviews television for The Spectator.
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How many people do you think died at Chernobyl? 10,000? 50,000? 300,000? The correct answer, according to the never knowingly understated World Health Organisation — in a thorough report released nearly 20 years after the 1986 explosion — was ‘fewer than 50’. Ah, but what about all the mutant babies who ended up with two
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If I’ve been incredibly rude to you or snappy or tearful lately, if I’ve taken offence where none was intended, or I’ve wildly overreacted to something you said on social media, I do apologise. It wasn’t the real me you experienced in those moments: it was the mad brain that sometimes seizes control of me.
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After its new costume drama You Go, Girl! (Sundays) about how amazing, empowered and better-than-men women are, especially if they are lesbians, the BBC ran its first ever Nike ad. At least that’s what I thought initially: rap music, moody shots of athletes, very high production values. Then I saw they were all grim-faced women
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‘Repeat after me, gentlemen: “Thank you for not letting me into your Oxbridge college because I belong to the wrong social class and I have been too well taught.’’ ’ I do hope they include this catechism in the new ‘gratitude’ lessons that they’re about to introduce at Eton. They should do because it’s true.
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‘Unfunny, boring and utterly unrelenting,’ says the Guardian’s one-star review of Chris Lilley’s new sketch series Lunatics (Netflix). And if that’s not incentive enough, our woke critical chum goes on to declare the series ‘problematic’. That’s a weaselly way of saying ‘this triggered all my snowflake sensitivities’ but in such a way as to make
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This is the time of year when the English countryside reaches peak incredible: when we rural folk mentally pinch ourselves in disbelief at our extraordinary good fortune in inhabiting the most beautiful landscape on earth. On every walk you see something to delight the eye and lift the spirits. First the blackthorn exploding in the
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‘I spend a lot of time helping teenagers who’ve been sexually abused…’ — beat — ‘…find their way out of my house.’ You’d scarcely imagine, listening to Frankie Boyle now, that this was the kind of joke he was telling on TV as recently as this decade. I wouldn’t believe it myself if I didn’t
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Here’s a quick quiz to jolly up your Easter. 1. Lucy Noble, artistic director of the Royal Albert Hall, thinks ‘white male titans’ such as Mozart, Beethoven and Bach are putting the young off classical music. Is she: a) Quite right! My kids would be gagging to go to the Royal Albert Hall if only
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If you liked Triumph of the Will, you’ll love this latest masterpiece of the genre: Our Planet. The Netflix nature series exploits the prestige, popularity and swansinging poignancy of Sir David Attenborough to promote an environmental message so relentlessly dishonest and alarmist it might have been scripted by the WWF. ‘Walruses committing suicide because of
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Gosh, it’s depressing watching the natural party of government committing slow-motion suicide. It’s depressing even if you’re not, as I am, an instinctive and more or less lifelong Conservative. What it means is that Britain is on the verge of losing its most effective, tried-and-tested prophylactic against the misery of socialism. Sure, there are lots
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Which of the Beatles would you most like to have been? Not either of the dead ones, presumably. Nor the one continually derided for his alleged lack of talent. Definitely not the embarrassing, gurning, two-thumbs-up uncool one… Anyway, it’s a trick question. The correct answer, at least it is for me after watching The Beatles:
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A few months ago I had possibly the best massage I’ve ever had. My masseuse, Anouschka, had learned her skills in a remote village in Thailand where she’d lived for a year in a mosquito-infested hut with the local medicine woman. I asked how she’d survived the mozzies. Anouschka explained that she’d just done what
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Halfway through the first part of Channel 4’s extraordinary documentary Leaving Neverland (Thursdays), I flicked through the comments on social media in order to gauge the global reaction. Surely, I thought, Michael Jackson’s reputation will never recover from these bombshell revelations. If you sat, squirming, though Dan Reed’s excruciatingly prurient documentary you’ll know what I
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Every day our age seems to be getting madder and madder, in defiance of the notion that man is a rational creature and of the even more risible Whiggish narrative that we’re on a path of continual progress. I’ll give you some examples: the murder of women’s sport by the transgender agenda; the rejection of
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Steve Coogan is back as Alan Partridge but frankly who cares? Like Ali G, I’ve long thought, he’s one of those ‘classic’ 1990s comedy characters funnier in recollection than ever he was in reality. He should have been confined to brief sketches — like Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield mostly did with their cheesy has-been
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It was a bright Sunday afternoon and I was harmlessly at my desk, minding my own business, when from the other end of the house I heard the screech of a thousand cats being boiled alive in oil. ‘Why did he do it? WHY??’ a female teenage voice wailed, half plaintive, half accusing, all righteous
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‘I know, let’s repaint the Sistine Chapel. But this time we’ll get it done by Banksy.’ Perhaps this wasn’t the exact phrase used in the early production meetings for the Sky Atlantic reboot (ho ho) of Das Boot (Wednesdays). It does describe pretty well the net result, though. Yes, I know James Walton covered it
On the surface, Ted Bundy was good-looking, normal-behaving and could be disarmingly charming
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Some medical experts claim that Lyme disease is worse than cancer. It’s not a competition, but I do know one thing: at least if you’ve got the Big C you get sympathy, understanding and prompt treatment. With Lyme you’re pretty much on your own. This isn’t a plea for public sympathy. I’ve had Lyme for
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Boy often likes to rebuke me for having impossibly high standards when it comes to TV. ‘Why can’t you just enjoy it?’ he says. This is disappointing. One reason I ruined myself to give him an expensive education is so I wouldn’t have to share my viewing couch with a drooling moron happy to gawp